Setting aside the merits of the Senate health care reform bill for a moment, I think it’s almost funny to watch the people who fought so hard to see that Harry Reid include an opt-out public option in the base bill prior to the Conference Committee are now left to argue that the Senate should reject the bill. They told people like me that I was shilling for the administration (or a secret agent of the DNC) when I warned them that the public option would get dropped and all the concessions to reach 60 would get set in stone leaving us little room to improve the bill in Conference. Okay, so I told them so. It doesn’t make it any more satisfying to be proven right.
It is also immensely ironic that all the effort that went into whipping the Progressive Caucus into insisting on a robust public option (by people who made their national name by publishing a photo of Joe Lieberman in blackface) was swatted down with a mere flip of Senator Lieberman’s wrist. It must be sweet revenge for Rape Gurney Joe. It’s probably all the sweeter in the face of naked attacks on his wife’s cancer research activism. I know attacking my family is the best way to convince me to do what you want. I’m sure you are no different.
Just a couple of reminders here. The Senate bill is not the final bill. It’s borderline retarded to openly advocate for killing the Senate bill right now. All that matters, and all that ever mattered, is what is in the Conference Report. Even though things look predictably (from my point of view) grim for the Conference Report, the time to reject passage of an unacceptably shitty bill is when it is actually about to be made into law. For progressives, the goal right now should be to try to make improvements in the bill in Conference. While some much needed changes won’t be possible, others will be.
I’m not quite in total agreement with Nate Silver because I think the current Senate bill is the political equivalent of self-injury. People will hate being mandated to buy insurance from for-profit corporations that have an anti-trust exemption. If you want to give people something really worthwhile and get absolutely no credit for it (actually, be hated for it) then the Senate bill is a good way to go. But Nate makes a decent case on the non-political merits.
I think people need to understand the importance of following the leadership of activists who actually understand what the fuck they’re talking about, who tell you the truth, who don’t set you up for disappointment with totally unrealistic expectations, and who don’t try to inspire by demonizing their allies. But, hey, to each his own.
